Heathersleigh Homecoming

by Michael Phillips

  As she reached the landing she heard voices downstairs. She began to descend the stairs, sensations from many past Christmases deepening within her, paying little attention to the conversation in progress below. She glanced toward the fireplace as it slowly came into view, almost expecting to see stockings hanging from it with hers, Catharine’s, and George’s names on them.

  But there were none.

  A pang of nostalgic sadness swept through her. She could almost sense at this moment that her mother was thinking of her. What was the rest of her family doing right now? Amanda wondered. Were they all celebrating happily around the Heathersleigh Christmas tree? A lump tried to rise in her throat. . . .

  “You dear girl . . .” Sister Hope’s voice now penetrated into Amanda’s hearing, “our Father is a good Father. . . .”

  Amanda now paused to listen as the present pushed out memories of the past. Hope, Galiana, and Anika were all in the big room, apparently talking with the young Serb, Kasmira. As she stood halfway down the stairway, Amanda became aware of the fragrance of sweet rolls coming from the kitchen.

  “God will not be angry with you,” Sister Hope continued, “because you voice doubts. His heart is tender toward you.”

  “But we are taught that Allah is angry toward all his enemies, toward those who doubt him.”

  “Many believe that of the God we call Father too,” Galiana now said.

  “As well as many Jews of ancient times,” added Anika. “That is why God sent his Son Jesus, to tell men and women the truth about their heavenly Father, to tell us that he is good and loving, and that we may trust him.”

  “As you learn to accept his love and forgiveness and kindness toward you, Kasmira dear, you need think no longer of God’s anger. You have a Father who loves you and a Savior who wants to be your friend and companion all the rest of the days of your life. I realize it is all new and must seem strange and different from your Muslim tradition. But you will learn, and you will soon discover how very patient and forgiving and understanding God is.”

  Amanda now continued down the final few steps of the stairway, then entered the large room where the others sat. Sunshine streamed in the windows. It was a bright, cheery day. Sister Hope glanced up.

  “Good morning—Happy Christmas, Amanda!” she said. She rose and gave Amanda a warm hug. “We have just been talking about the Christmas story with Kasmira. She has not been familiar with it. Make yourself some tea, then come join us.”

  An hour later, after one of the most unusual discussions of spiritual things Amanda had ever been part of, during which Sister Hope had knelt with Kasmira and the former Muslim had offered an extraordinary prayer of grateful conversion from one faith to another, the five women took chairs around the large table. In front of them stood platters of what could only be described as a Christmas breakfast feast—bread, cheeses, sliced meats, yogurt, butter, and fresh cheese danish still steaming from the oven. Two fresh pots, one of tea, the other coffee, added the pleasure of their aromas to the whole.

  “Why don’t you all help yourselves and begin,” said Sister Hope, “while I read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke. Sister Galiana, would you give thanks for us on this wonderful morning of new birth?”

  45

  Heathersleigh Christmas

  Christmas morning at Heathersleigh Hall could not have been more different than Amanda envisioned it, or more distinct from that in which she herself was participating at that moment.

  The spirit over the estate of her former home had grown more subdued and quiet as Christmas approached. Upon Catharine’s return from visiting Oxford, she and Jocelyn had begun thinking of Christmas and wondering what to do to keep from becoming too depressed at the thought of Charles,’ George’s, and Amanda’s absences.

  “You know what we should do, Mother,” said Catharine one day in the middle of December. “We have to try to make Christmas special for others. If we are alone, that does not give us the right to be sad.”

  “You are exactly right,” rejoined Jocelyn. “What would our Lord do? Obviously he would think of others, not himself. Many women are without their husbands and fathers and brothers just as we are—we shall try to cheer them up rather than be lonely ourselves. What do you suggest . . . that we go visiting, that we bake things for people?”

  “Why don’t we do both, Mother? It would be fun. We could load up the car just like Father Christmas’s sleigh, full of breads and jams and sweets, and then go round to everyone in the village.”

  Jocelyn laughed with delight at the image.

  “We shall do it! I propose we set to work planning and baking this very day.”

  They had done just that, such that by Christmas Eve the kitchen and pantry were piled high with loaves of breads and candies, cakes and cookies and puddings, biscuits and scones and preserves, and all manner of dried fruits and nuts. The list of potential recipients had grown steadily since the inception of the project, and now included the name of nearly every family in Milverscombe and for several miles around.

  When Christmas Day came, Jocelyn awoke early. She could not help it. It was Christmas morning, and she was a mother.

  Her thoughts immediately filled with Amanda. Little did she dream that at that moment Amanda lay in a comfortable bed in the care of dear sisters in the Lord thinking of her. Had Jocelyn known it, she would have wept for joy. As it was she wept quietly for sadness. But her years of prayers for her eldest daughter were being answered to a greater degree than Jocelyn could have imagined. Many good influences toward home-going were being planted in Amanda’s heart, and the memories stirring within her were doing their healthy work of disconcertment. Much movement in the right direction was vigorously under way.

  Jocelyn rose, dressed, and went downstairs alone to have a walk through the quiet house, praying for each of her family. As always, she had placed their five stockings on the fireplace. But she and Catharine had agreed to let even their two remain empty this year with the rest. It was a little sad and brought a few renewed tears to see them hanging limply from the hearth.

  That was where Catharine found her when she approached from behind and placed a gentle arm around her shoulders. Jocelyn glanced to her side and up into the face of her youngest daughter.

  “Hello, dear—Happy Christmas,” said Jocelyn, smiling through her tears.

  “And to you, too, Mother. Thinking of the others?”

  Jocelyn nodded.

  “We will all be together again, Mother,” Catharine said. “One day the stockings will be full again.”

  “I know, sweetheart,” replied Jocelyn softly. “I’ll be all right. I’ve had my cry for the day. And now you and I are going to have a wonderful Christmas!”

  The two Rutherford women enjoyed a quiet Devonshire breakfast together, then set upon the last of their baking with enthusiasm, planning to leave the house on the first of their Christmas rounds, as they had come to call them, around nine.

  Their first call was to Maggie’s cottage to give her their gifts and spend half an hour enjoying a cup of tea with their dearest friend. They well knew after leaving Maggie’s and driving into the village that they would be invited for tea at every home they entered. But neither time nor their constitutions would permit the acceptance of every such request. According to Catharine’s calculations, accounting for travel time between stops—and an hour’s break for the morning’s service at the Milverscombe church, where they would see and visit with everyone a second time—ten or fifteen minutes in each home was the maximum they could afford to budget.

  When Jocelyn and Catharine arrived back at Heathersleigh Hall late in the afternoon about thirty minutes after the sun had set behind the western hills, they were exhausted with the pleasurable fatigue of having given of themselves to the limit.

  “I don’t know how I will sleep tonight,” sighed Jocelyn as she turned off the car’s engine in front of the Hall and laid her head back against the seat. “I’ve never had so much tea in one day in m
y life. But I am so exhausted all I can think of is my bed.”

  “You can’t go to sleep yet, Mother,” said Catharine. “I still have my present to give you. I’ve been saving it all day.”

  They got out of the car and wearily walked inside. The house was empty and quiet. The staff had gone to be with their own families for several days. Jocelyn was especially glad on occasions such as this for the electricity Charles and George had installed. She switched on several lights as they entered, and immediately the great house did not feel nearly so desolate.

  “I have something for you too, Catharine,” said Jocelyn.

  “I didn’t see anything under the tree.”

  “I didn’t put it under the tree—I wanted to surprise you. Do you feel like something to eat?”

  “Perhaps just a light snack . . . a roll and a glass of milk, perhaps . . . but no tea!”

  They both laughed.

  “That sounds good to me too. Then we shall exchange our gifts.”

  As they sat down thirty or forty minutes later, it was with the contented feeling of a day well spent. Jocelyn handed Catharine a small wrapped package across the table.

  “Thank you, Mother—what is it?”

  “Open it, dear. You don’t think I’m going to tell you!”

  Catharine did so, pulling out a small, exquisitely hand-painted watch pin.

  “Mother . . . your watch!” exclaimed Catharine.

  “My father gave it to me when they were leaving for India and I remained in England to begin my nursing training. It is one of my most treasured reminders of him. You are twenty now and will be going off to Oxford to study next year—”

  “Perhaps,” said Catharine. “I haven’t entirely decided.”

  “Nevertheless,” Jocelyn went on, “I want you to have it now.”

  “Thank you, Mother. I shall treasure it always. Now I have something for you.”

  Catharine jumped up from the table, left the room momentarily, and returned a minute later with a small rolled parchment scroll tied with a thin red ribbon. She sat down and handed it to her mother.

  Jocelyn untied the ribbon and unrolled the parchment, then cast up at Catharine a look of puzzlement.

  “It is a little story, Mother,” said Catharine. “I wrote it for you.”

  “How special dear! I can’t believe it.”

  Slowly Jocelyn began to read the hand-lettered words on the page, her eyes slowly filling with tears.

  God’s Wom an

  I went out today and found myself tracing steps through the grass. Though I knew not whose they were, something caused me to ask, “What makes a woman of God?”

  A hunger arose within me, and I wondered, “Will it ever be said of me that I am she?”

  Then came an answer. “The path toward what you seek is trod by few. The cost is high, the way marked not through grassy meadows of contented ease but across byways of sacrifice, grief, doubt, prayer, and tears. Through such are my women made strong, and their hearts enlarged to house my presence.”

  Suddenly I knew they were your steps I was following on just that very journey. With a pang I realized that even my love could not allow me to know all you have felt as you walked that course, or the pain that came as you trod avenues of life you did not anticipate. But setting my feet in yours let me share it briefly, and for that moment I rejoiced.

  Then I saw you coming toward me from a small wood ahead. Your face was radiant and alive with great joy. I knew that you had seen the Master.

  I tried to speak. Fain would I ask what wondrous thing your countenance revealed, that I might partake in it. With all my heart I desired to be God’s woman too. But no words came from my lips. You held your hands out to me in embrace. I saw in their palms the holes of the Savior’s own death. All my questions were swallowed up in the radiance of your face, and I knew that your joy came because you had partaken in his suffering. And I saw the truth you had discovered in your prayer closet, that suffering carves out within God’s women the very cistern of soul into which he pours his presence. And I knew that the deeper the well, the more of himself it is able to contain.

  Then the vision vanished, and I was alone. I turned back the way I had come. I looked down. The imprint was no longer in the grass beneath me. I wondered, had it all been a dream?

  In the distance I saw you walking toward me again. Now it was no mere vision but was really you, the friend I love. And I knew where you were going. You were bound for your prayer wood where the Master waited to fill you with the joy your faithfulness had made you ready to receive, and which my vision had foreseen.

  You smiled as you passed. Your hands were unblemished. For what I had beheld earlier was but a symbol of the scar of that deeper cavity you now carried within your very own soul. You had suffered with him. You had wept in the seasons of your aloneness. He had privileged you to feel the pain of love and the agony of loss. He had gathered up the droplets of your weeping and poured them into the deep reservoir within you, which was the shape of his own being. Your tears had become the perfume of precious nard with which his dwelling place was anointed. And I knew that you were his woman.

  I loved you anew as you passed. I longed to follow, but knew I could not. For my time was not yet, and I must walk the path he had chosen for me.

  I watched you go, knowing how blessed I was to be allowed to share a season of life’s pathway with you. And now came the answer to the question I had asked in the beginning.

  “Follow the example you have seen.”

  And I knew the meaning of my vision, that it was said of you: “She has allowed me to carve out my depths within her, and in her heart I dwell.”

  When she had completed it, the paper fell from Jocelyn’s hands. She rose and walked around the table. She had no words. All she could do was take Catharine in her arms and weep.

  46

  Christmas Dinner With Meat for Discussion

  Late in the day, Herr Buchmann arrived at the Chalet of Hope for Christmas dinner. After carving the Christmas turkey, he and the five women took their places around the large table.

  “Herr Buchmann,” said Sister Hope, “would you be so kind as to offer our appreciation to the Lord on this special day of thanksgiving and rejoicing.”

  “I would be honored,” replied the schoolmaster. “Our loving heavenly Father,” he began, “our hearts are full of gratitude on this day for what it means to those who know you, and for all those who are yet to know you.

  “Thank you for this season, for the life you have given us, for the ministry of this chalet, and for your great gift most of all. Thank you for the reminder of that very special day when you gave your Son that mankind might know you as it had never known you before. Through him you revealed that deepest aspect of your nature that you had not shown fully until that moment—that you are our Father.

  “Thank you, God. Because of the miracle of Christmas, we now know to call you by that wonderful name. On this day especially let us dare address you as Jesus did, as our very own and personal Abba. For Fatherhood is the message of Christmas, as your own Fatherhood is your greatest gift to us—exactly as Jesus told us. Amen.”

  Herr Buchmann turned to Kasmira sitting beside him as the platters began to make their way around the table.

  “How long have you been with the sisters here at the chalet, my dear?” he asked.

  “Three weeks,” she replied timidly, still somewhat shy of this outgoing, gregarious man who seemed to treat women as respected human equals, and was therefore different from any man she had ever met in her own culture.

  “I understand your husband died in the recent fighting?”

  “Yes,” answered Kasmira, lowering her eyes.

  “I was very sorry to hear of it. But I trust that you will find good in life in spite of it. Our Lord told us that death was not the end, you know. We still have much to hope for.”

  She nodded.

  “And what do you think of it here?” he asked.

  �
��I am learning many new things.”

  “I have always found that the atmosphere of the chalet tends toward that,” said Herr Buchmann. “Would you not agree, Sister Hope?”

  “Such indeed is my prayer.”

  “You know, Sister Hope,” said Anika thoughtfully, after a temporary lull in the conversation, “what Herr Buchmann prayed a few minutes ago was exactly what I might have expected to hear from you.”

  “I confess,” smiled Sister Hope, “I did find his words resonating within my own spirit.”

  “To what are you referring?” asked Herr Buchmann, intrigued.

  “About God’s Fatherhood being the gift of Christmas,” said Anika.

  “Ah yes, one of my scandalous theological notions.”

  “I don’t find it scandalous in the least,” said Hope. “I might not have used those exact words, but it is that very thing, in principle at least, that I have been explaining to Kasmira today, that because of Christmas we can more fully know of the Father’s goodness. She has grown up in a tradition where an angry God rules the universe. I have told her that the manger shows us God’s love. It is the culmination of his many acts of mercy and goodness toward his children.”

  “I have always thought that God’s greatest gift to us was Jesus,” now said Sister Galiana, “and that he was the gift of Christmas.”

  “Jesus is certainly a dear and precious gift to man,” rejoined Herr Buchmann. “But I have to say that I believe God’s most priceless gift to us is himself. Of course it is impossible to separate Jesus from that. When God sent Jesus to be born, he was giving himself, wasn’t he?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Sister Galiana.

  “Just this—that he sent Jesus, not as a gift to us merely in himself as the Son, but for the purpose of telling us that God is our Father. That is the one thing Jesus talked about above all else—the one thing he tried most persistently to get through to his disciples . . . that God was their Father, a good Father, their loving and tender Abba.”